Dear Husband and I have watched several documentaries on a new hotel that has been built in Dubai. A man-made island has been created offshore to support a “tent building” that is sixty or more stories tall. Part of the skin of the building is canvas, and the building has the shape of a sail filled with wind.
One of the things that caught my attention was that the builders were commissioned to create a memorable design that would make the shape one of the ten most recognizable buildings in the world.
They drew two shapes which we recognized immediately, but left the rest unmentioned. That list has been on my mind all day.
They drew the Opera House in Sydney, and the Eiffel Tower. I might quibble with the Eiffel Tower as a building, but it is a memorable design.

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Well, 41 days after my knee went bad, I’m driving again. We went to exercise today. YEA!! But, the knee is not yet healed. It’s slightly less painful than it was the day it went bad, but it still hurts to rise from a chair after I’ve been sitting for a while, and I have to be careful how I do steps.
The Physician’s Assistant at the Orthopedic center thinks I have a medial collateral ligament sprain. She also thinks that the three weeks of immobilization helped that sprain. But, that immobilizing wrecked havoc on the hamstrings on that leg. I’m going to physical therapy to stretch the hamstrings out. I’ve seen improvement every day for the past week.
I was timid at first. My therapist was surprised that I wasn’t driving. She asked if the PA had said not to drive. I began to realize that it was time to quit babying the knee and get back to life.
My gait is a bit odd, but the therapist assures me that it will come back. Sitting for three weeks, trying not to further damage the right knee, I put a lot of demands on the left side of my body. She has me working on all the major groups of muscles from the waist down, to re-create muscle support for balance and walking. I think I have about two or possibly three weeks left of therapy and then it will be time to get back to all my chores. Boo! HISS!
If at the end of the three weeks my knee still hurts, we will probably do an MRI. I find it odd that they have chosen to wait to see what’s wrong, but my knee seems to be healing. We’ll have to trust that they know what they are doing, and hope the knee continues to heal.
The end of therapy will put me at just about six weeks from my visit to the doctor. Bogie….did you say that WS was told to wait it out for six weeks, and then another two? That seems to be the magic number.

Tuesday, a strong storm cell came through the Chicago area. Most of the really heavy rain was dumped on the towns near the northern border with Wisconsin, but we had our share of the high winds.
Unfortunately, one of our old trees succumbed, either to a lightning strike or to the high winds. When Dear Husband made his mail walk down the driveway at 5:15 in the morning, it was apparent that the tree had fallen and was snagged on a mulberry tree at the bend in the driveway. He trimmed enough branches to allow his truck to pass. He came home early to do battle with the tree.
He cut the smaller branches first and pulled them to the side of the drive. Then he started on the the trunk. He said that the tree was winning the contest because the chains on the chain saw were all dull.
We have been collecting branches from across the grounds the past year, and stacking them to the east side of the driveway. DH rented a chipper-shredder last month and chipped through the stack in one afternoon. He mowed the area that had been covered with branches, and it looked bald. Apparently Mother Nature wanted it covered up again with branches, so she sent a storm to help us restock.
The skyline has changed. The bend in the drive is much brighter now with a tree and a half gone. The mulberry that caught the falling tree lost branches, too. It will be interesting to see what effect the additional sunlight has on the area that’s been opened up. Fewer shrubs, more grass, LESS POISON IVY are just a few of the possibilities.